ASSOCIATED PRESS by Edith M. Leder                                                                          Feb. 11, 2015
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N. Ebola chief says U.S. troops being withdrawn from Liberia have done their job of building desperately needed treatment centers but that more than 10,000 civilians working in West Africa and supported by the United States are still essential to combating the deadly disease.

Dr. David Nabarro warned in an interview Wednesday with The Associated Press that the battle against Ebola is far from over, pointing to a disappointing rise in new cases last week in hardest-hit Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.

He said civilians from the U.S., Britain, France and elsewhere are still needed to help with tracing Ebola victims' contacts, re-establishing health services and changing behavior in communities.

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http://news.yahoo.com/un-ebola-chief-10-000-us-civilians-needed-183453840.html;_ylt=AwrBJSCfs9xUf00Af7XQtDMD

THE WHITE  HOUSE  PRESS OFFICE                                          FEB. 11, 2015

Fact sheet on the Ebola situation

"...Together with our international partners – and the people of the three nations themselves – we have bent the curve of the epidemic and placed it on a much improved trajectory. We have gone from over 1,000 new suspected, probable, and confirmed Ebola cases a week in October, to roughly 150 new confirmed weekly cases in the most recent reports.  Liberia has reported only a handful of new cases per week, a drop of well over 90 percent.  Significant declines also have been reported in Sierra Leone from the epidemic’s peak. Among the accomplishments in this response:..."

Read complete Statement
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/02/11/fact-sheet-progress-our-ebola-response-home-and-abroad

Also see:

Most U.S. Troops will be withdrawn, posted yesterday, Feb. 11, 2015

AFP                                                                                                        Feb. 11, 2015

Geneva -- The number of new Ebola cases in west Africa rose for the second week running after a previous fall, including a "sharp increase" in Guinea, the World Health Organization said Wednesday.

Health workers wearing protective suits carry a patient suspected of having Ebola on their way to an Ebola treatment centre in Macenta, Guinea, on November 21, 2014 (AFP Photo/Kenzo Tribouillard)

Nearly 9,000 people have died from the epidemic, the WHO said while admitting that it was impossible to give a precise number as the outcomes of some cases remained unknown.

All but 15 of the fatalities have happened in the worst-affected west African countries of Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea.

In the week up to February 8 a total of 144 new cases were registered, compared to 124 the previous week.

"Guinea reported a sharp increase in incidence, with 65 new confirmed cases compared with 39 the week before," the WHO said in its report.

REUTERS   by Sharon Begley                                                                                      Feb. 10, 2015

NEW YORK --An experimental Ebola drug from Sarepta Therapeutics Inc protected six of eight lab monkeys injected with the virus, scientists from the company and the U.S. Army reported on Tuesday.

The drug, called AVI-7537, joins ZMapp from Mapp Biopharmaceutical and a compound from Tekmira Pharmaceuticals Corp as the agents shown to cure non-human primates given otherwise-lethal injections of Ebola virus.

The ZMapp and Tekmira drugs protected 100 percent of lab monkeys in studies, giving them a possible edge. But, unlike those, Sarepta's drug has been formally tested in healthy human volunteers at high doses and caused no serious side effects.

Sarepta's $300 million contract with the U.S. Department of Defense to develop drugs against Ebola and the related Marburg virus ended in 2012 due to government funding cuts. The study was completed just before then but not published until the current Ebola outbreak increased interest in the drug....

The search for an Ebola cure is gearing up — but there may be too few patients.  (Scroll down for Graphics.)

WASHINGTON POST     by  Amy Brittain                                                                      Feb. 10, 2015                        

AFP   by Rod Mac Johnson                                        Feb. 10, 2015
Freetown -- Sierra Leone announced Tuesday the launch of an infectious diseases prevention agency, saying it would convert its Ebola clinics into treatment and research units for some of the world's deadliest viruses.

The organisation will follow the model of the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the leading American public health institute which has been at the forefront of the response the west African Ebola outbreak....

Although some Ebola units are temporary, Sierra Leone and its neighbours Guinea and Liberia have been looking for ways to continue using others launched at great expense at the height of the epidemic.

"We are now on the verge of constructing a permanent Centres for Disease Control in Sierra Leone, and also the introduction of an ambulance service in the country," government spokesman Abdulai Bayraytay told an online news conference.

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http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-hit-sierra-leone-announces-disease-control-agency-222729883.html;_ylt=AwrBJR7GdttUOCIA_kXQtDMD

REUTERS  by Emma Farge                                                                                          Feb. 10, 2015

DAKAR --Sierra Leone said on Tuesday it had cleaned up a list thought to contain thousands of "ghostworkers" on its Ebola staff and would prosecute those who sought to swindle money from the government, tackling a problem that has dogged its fight against the epidemic.

More than 10,000 Ebola cases have been reported in Sierra Leone since last May, making it the hardest hit country in the world's worst outbreak of the hemorrhagic fever. The epidemic has been concentrated in West Africa and killed nearly 9,000 people out of 22,495 known cases since December 2013.

In Sierra Leone, payments to Ebola staff have repeatedly been frozen because of the difficulty distinguishing between genuine workers -- such as ambulance drivers and grave diggers -- and those forging their identities to claim hazard bonuses or registering twice to claim double pay.

Read complete story.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/10/us-health-ebola-fraud-idUSKBN0LE2M920150210

UPDATE: Obama says US has ‘risen to the challenge’ of fighting Ebola

ASSOCIATED PRESS  BY Edith Lederer in New York and Josh Lederman in Washington               Feb. 11, 2015

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama heralded a “new phase in the fight” against Ebola on Wednesday and said progress against the outbreak in West Africa will allow the U.S. to withdraw nearly all American troops sent to Liberia last fall.

He cautioned the mission was not over, and he set an ambitious goal of eliminating the disease. “We have risen to the challenge,” he said at the White House. “Our focus now is getting to zero.”

Obama said only 100 of the 2,800 troops sent to Liberia will remain there after April 30. About 1,500 have returned home.

...Earlier in the day, he met with philanthropists and foundation leaders who had supported the fight against the outbreak, which had threatened to spiral out of control and fostered fears in the U.S. and elsewhere beyond West Africa.

At the height of the outbreak, Liberia was experiencing 119 confirmed Ebola cases per week. This week there were only three. But Guinea reported a sharp increase with 65 new confirmed cases compared with 39 the week before. Sierra Leone reported 76 new confirmed cases.

Margaret Chan, the director general of the World Health Organization.
Credit Salvatore Di Nolfi/Keystone, via Associated Press

nytimes.com - by The Editorial Board - February 10, 2015

The World Health Organization’s anemic performance in handling the Ebola outbreaks in West Africa may yield one positive outcome: sweeping, and long overdue, institutional reforms to improve its ability to respond more quickly to the next outbreak of a lethal infectious disease. Scrambling to answer growing criticism, the W.H.O.’s executive board recently endorsed changes to enhance the agency’s rapid response capabilities.

The reforms call for well-trained public health workers to rush to the aid of beleaguered countries and an emergency fund to support their initial operations, among other advances.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

(CLICK HERE - WHO - RESOLUTION AND SUPPORTING DOCUMENTATION)

Pope Francis (CNS)

catholicherald.co.uk - by Conor Gaffey - February 9, 2015

Protecting the environment is a Christian duty not just reserved for ‘green’ activists, Pope Francis said today.

The Pope tackled the topic of creation in his morning homily at Casa Santa Marta, warning that Christians must be the protectors of the natural world, not its masters. . .

. . . The Pope is expected to release his eagerly anticipated encyclical on the environment in June or July ahead of the UN Climate Change Conference to be held in Paris in December.

On his flight from Sri Lanka to Manila in January, Francis was reported to have said that human beings are largely to blame for climate change.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

Image: Polling results as a graph.

cleantechnica.com - January 23rd 2015 - Joshua S. Hill

The US Natural Resources Defense Council has released the results of a new “bipartisan” poll of five key states that sought “Views on Environmental Regulations,” which clearly show Americans are not only in favor of existing environmental protections — and in some cases favor tougher enforcement — but also support President Obama’s climate and clean energy initiatives.

The polling results are labelled as “bipartisan” due to the combined efforts of Democratic pollsters Hart Research Associates, and Republican polling firm American Viewpoint.

Together, the two firms — which conducted a survey of 2016 likely voters in Colorado, Florida, Maine, New Hampshire, and Virginia — found that “there is no appetite” for the “weakening of environmental regulations,” adding that “most respondents in these states believe that enforcement of environmental regulations is not tough enough.”

MONROVIA --Assistant Health Minister and head of Liberia’s incident management system, Tolbert Nyensuwah, told journalists in Monrovia on Monday that five confirmed cases had been reported around Monrovia over the past seven days.

According to Minister Nyensuwah, the cases were reported from three communities in the western suburbs of the capital....

He has partially blamed the situation on some infected people refusing to seek treatment despite the availability of treatment centres, noting that a full-scale investigation is underway to ascertain why.

Fead complete story.
http://mobile.english.rfi.fr/africa/20150203-liberia-experimental-vaccines-against-ebola?utm_source=February+4+2015+EN&utm_campaign=2%2F4%2F2015&utm_medium=email

THE PRESS ASSOCIATION                               Feb. 4, 2015
LONDON --A British nurse who contracted Ebola while working in Sierra Leone possibly caught the virus by wearing a visor and not goggles, an investigation has suggested.
Press Association - Save the Children said Pauline Cafferkey, pictured on her return to health, may have contracted Ebola by wearing a visor rather than goggles when treating patients in Sierra Leone

The report by Save the Children said it cannot be completely certain how Pauline Cafferkey contracted Ebola but said both pieces of equipment are "equally safe".

The nurse, from Cambuslang in South Lanarkshire, had volunteered with the charity at the Ebola Treatment Centre (ETC) in Kerry Town before returning to the UK in December....

Save the Children published the findings of an independent review into the possible causes of how the 39-year-old caught the virus. The report said both visors and goggles are safe but there are slight differences in the type of clothing worn with each and in the protocols for putting them on and removing them....

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REUTERS    by Kate Kelland                                                                                 Feb. 3, 2014

LONDON  - Almost $2.9 billion was pledged by the end of 2014 in donations to fight West Africa's Ebola epidemic, yet only around 40 percent had actually reached affected countries, researchers said on Tuesday.

A study by the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs that tracked international donations showed barely $1.09 billion had reached the worst affected countries by the end of last year, they said.

"These delays ... may have contributed to spread of the virus and could have increased the financial needs," said Karen Grepin, a global health policy expert at New York University who led the study and published it in the BMJ British medical journal.

Read full story.
http://news.yahoo.com/only-40-percent-ebola-funds-reached-target-countries-233343915.html

Link to full study.

International donations to the Ebola virus outbreak: too little, too late?

BRITISH MEDICAL JOURNAL   by  Karen A Grépin                                                      Feb. 3, 2015

AFP                                                                      Feb. 3, 2015
GENEVA: The World Health Organization said Tuesday it had appointed its assistant director-general Bruce Aylward to head its overall response to the deadly Ebola outbreak.

It also said an independent commission was being created to assess WHO's widely criticised response to the epidemic, after the UN agency admitted last month it had been caught napping on Ebola and pledged reforms to avoid similar mistakes in the future.

WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib told reporters that Alward, a Canadian, will be responsible for coordinating all the different aspects of the agency's response to the devastating outbreak, which has killed nearly 9,000 people, almost all of them in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.